NEW YORK - Hundreds of books line carefully organized shelves from the latest fiction to top selling biographies. But this isn't your typical library, this is Gracie Square Hospital - a psychiatric facility on the Upper East Side.
"In the beginning I thought, well people will read a few books here and there, and I really had no idea the impact it would have on this institution. When the patients see the book cart coming on the floor, you would think that they were getting a million dollars," said Sue Fenton, a volunteer at Gracie Square Hospital for more than five years.
She and her daughter-in-law Tracey Fenton started the library in 2017. All of the books - more than 5,000 of them - were donated by Media Source, Inc., the company Tracey works for.
They are pre-published copies that can't be sold and if not for the library, they would have otherwise end up in the trash.
"The patients get to keep the books they get - it's received as a gift, and for many of them, they're not given very many gifts these days so I think it contributes to their overall well-being in a number of ways," Tracey Fenton said.
For Sue, providing these patients with gifts - and an outlet during treatment - is deeply personal. In 2005, she was hospitalized for newly diagnosed clinical depression.
"Depression, real depression, you get a veil over all the wonderful things and it's almost transparent, but it's a grey veil and it goes down and it colors your whole world. The sun could be shining, but you can't see it," Fenton said.
This is the reason why Sue is determined to be open about her mental health struggles while also encouraging others to fight the shame that often surrounds it.
"We have to get rid of the stigma and the more people like me, and the hundreds before me who have spoken about this subject, maybe we can do something about it, we are all in this together," Fenton said.
And for Sue, it’s through books that she’s making a difference.
So, for brightening the days of patients at Gracie Square Hospital, Sue and Tracey Fenton are our New Yorkers of the Week.